The Stories In The Stones Epitaphs- When the Stones Speak To Us

MIDDLEBORO — Gravestones do more than mark the final resting place of one of our ancestors, giving us the basics of the person's name and the dates of his birth and death. Often they have something to say to us that is either the view of the person buried there if he planned his stone before his death, or a commentary b...

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By Jeff Stevens

southcoasttoday.com

By Jeff Stevens

Posted Mar. 21, 2013 at 12:31 PM

By Jeff Stevens

Posted Mar. 21, 2013 at 12:31 PM

» Social News

MIDDLEBORO — Gravestones do more than mark the final resting place of one of our ancestors, giving us the basics of the person's name and the dates of his birth and death. Often they have something to say to us that is either the view of the person buried there if he planned his stone before his death, or a commentary by the person's family. In either case the comments often reflect the religious view of the day or the special role the deceased may have played in the community.

Usually these "epitaphs" are in the form of a poem at the bottom of the headstone. Many stones in the Green Cemetery have epitaphs but many are very hard to read.

Lydia Thomas was the wife of Jeremiah Thomas. She died in "ye 52nd year of her age" on July 6, 1717. She was a groundbreaker (sorry for the cemetery humor) in her own way as her stone tells us, "She was the First Person Buried in this place." One has to wonder if she was a bit competitive.

The Reverand Sylvanus Conant was an early minister of the Church On the Green. He died in the smallpox epidemic of 1777/78 when he went to the pest house to help the sick, only to become a victim himself. He has a stone at the Green even though he is buried in the Soule Smallpox Cemetery. His epitaph poem reflects his strong belief in his bodily resurrection on the second coming and reads :

So sleep the saints and cease to groan

When sin and death have done their worst

Christ hath a glory like his own

Which waits to cloth their waking dust

Finally, leave it to those practical folks in Sanford, Maine to use gravestone space to speak to the living. A "grieving" (?) widow must have designed her husband's gravestone.

Sacred to the Memory of Mr. Jared Bates, who died Aug the 6th 1800. His widow, aged 24, who mourns as one who can be comforted, lives at 7 Elm Street this village and possesses every quality for a good wife.